M. Night Shyamalan Flops Again

A decade ago, he was touted as the next Steven Spielberg and his name was enough to sell a film. Now M. Night Shyamalan is associated with flops.

His latest movie, “After Earth,” was publicized as a Will and Jaden Smith project. In the trailer and advertisements, there’s scant reference to the director, indicating that his star has fallen, far.

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Will “After Earth” help Mr. Shyamalan repair his reputation? It appears not.

“The biggest flop of the summer so far came from perhaps the unlikeliest source: Will Smith, one of Hollywood’s few remaining global superstars,” The Wall Street Journal’s Ben Fritz wrote in a review.

Mr. Shyamalan, born in Pondicherry, south India, in 1970, earned accolades for his Oscar-nominated film “The Sixth Sense,” which he wrote and directed. But he has never had another movie as successful as that 1999 hit. Rather, he has been responsible for box office duds such as “The Last Airbender” (2010) and “The Happening” (2008.)

“I think Shyamalan is a smart, interesting filmmaker who has run out of interesting supernatural ideas and appears, for the moment, to have become a director for hire, making movies he didn’t write. But I don’t think he’s that kind of filmmaker,” Pulitzer Prize winning film critic Wesley Morris said.

“The Last Airbender was visually and narratively incoherent in a way that his movies don’t tend to be,” said Mr. Morris.

“As the writer of his movies, even a bad one like The Happening, you had the sense that he’d worked out the visual and character architecture. The Last Airbender had very little of him in it,” Mr. Morris added.

Christopher Rosen, an editor with Huffington Post Entertainment, believes The Sixth Sense is Mr. Shyamalan’s best feature, but even that hasn’t held up the way something like Mr. Spielberg’s “Jaws” has.

“His early work was too reliant on twists, his later work has been too scattered. Is he a space guy now, with The Last Airbender and After Earth? Is he still another Steven Spielberg? The only trend I see at this point is gun for hire,” Mr. Rosen said.

After Earth is the story of a father and son who are marooned on Earth in the future, in the year 1000 AE (After Earth), a millennium after humans escaped the planet. It’s a tale of survival, but the movie hasn’t managed to avoid the wrath of critics.

Peter Foley/European Pressphoto Agency

M. Night Shyamalan in New York, May 29.

“If you’re still wondering whether After Earth is a disaster, the question is not if, but how big?” Betsy Sharkey said a scathing review in the Los Angeles Times.

“Have alien body snatchers made off with M. Night Shyamalan? There is no small irony that this sci-fi action adventure is about surviving a serious crash. The scorched earth left behind by After Earth is sure to leave a scar on everyone involved,” Ms. Sharkey wrote.

“Although the Smith franchise will no doubt recover, the toxic ozone hanging over Shyamalan won’t lift any time soon,” she added.

Mr. Morris agreed that After Earth will further diminish Mr. Shyamalan’s reputation. He has to return to his own original scripts to try to redeem himself, the film critic said.

In a recent interview on Movies.com, Mr. Shyamalan said he was overseeing the writing of a television pilot called “Wayward Pines.”

Mr. Rosen said going into television “isn’t the worst idea” for the director, as it could present him with the opportunity to “resurrect his brand.”

Mr. Rosen added that Mr. Shyamalan needs to figure out what is his strength as a director. The Sixth Sense and Signs were “Spielbergian” because they dealt with regular people in extraordinary circumstances. He tried that again with Lady in the Water and The Happening, but it didn’t work because the characters weren’t well-written or thought out, Mr. Rosen said.

“He needs to get back to writing ‘real people.’ It’s possible he could have a comeback, but it might take a while,” he added.

After Earth is released in India on Friday.

Visi R. Tilak is freelance writer with bylines in publications such as the Boston Globe, Indian Express, India Today and Tehelka. She can be reached via email, her website or on Twitter

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